Is shadow priest any good?

[Wenoxar]

I'm rerolling from Warlock to (Fire) Mage. Then I realized... Hey noob! Shadow might be a good spec as well!

Let's assume that Fire mage (PvE environment) is pretty much:

Pros:
- Nice ST
- Nice Cleave
- Nice AoE Burst
- Nice AoE sustained damage
- Nice mobility
- Nice survivability (with artifact traits)
- Can cheese PvE mechanics with ice block

Cons:
- Can't deal with spread targets at all

I really don't know how much of a truth it is, it just came to my mind.

Can somebody tell me something about Shadow priest? Honestly all I've heard about Shadow Priest is that it is a hard-to-play spec (which is good!) and... that it sucks in mythic+ dungeons. And that's what's buried in my mind.

Somebody with experience would be kind enough to make some "pros'n'cons" list for me? In Legion raids it seems there will be a lot of AoE burst fights, and I've been told that Shadow doesn't really have any solid AoE burst.

How good can Shadow priest be in mythic raids?

Yeah, there's tons of information in forums, I just kind of cannot put it all together with so much information floating around. However stupid and retarded it sounds.

Thanks for feedback.

[-Cynical-]

Method put out a video talking about Shadow Priest in Legion, I found it pretty insightful.

[Nehezbegar]

Answer is simple, if u cant master Surrender to Madness, You will probably suck, because the other talents in the 100 tier are way worse.

[GT4]

Pros:
- Highest single target and prolonged multi target DPS in the game during surrender to madness
- Scales extremely well with secondary stats

Cons:
- Average at best without surrender to madness
- Mediocre AoE and basically non-existent burst AoE
- Relatively low mobility (like most casters aside from fire mages)
- Really high ramp up time to start doing any damage
- (Typically not a relevant point but SP is borderline unplayable without a decent amount of haste)

Although I've listed a lot more cons than pros here, if you use surrender to madness properly you'll be extremely useful in raids. Below 35% is typically when bosses start throwing all their shit at the raid and it's also when SPs can start doing crazy DPS and self-healing with StM.

[Deleted]

How much easier/harder will StM be in entry-level Legion gear compared to a mix of BRF mythic and HFC normal/heroic gear? Do the artifact traits help keep StM rolling for longer easier?

[Niwes]

stay mage

why ?

1) mages are since vanilla blizzards beloved "always over the top" spec.
2) you have 3 dps specs, which helps a lot when blizzard fail at balancing, like they always do.
3) fire mage mobility - very useful in that absurd heavy movement fights.
4) aoe dmg is literally non existent on SP. and we all know since WoD: you need snap aoe A LOT.
5) you suck at dngs. since myth+ will give absurd good gear, you dont wanna suck there.
6) everything whats have to do with short living adds (outdoor, raid trash, adds, quests) sucks with SP.

aside from the points above, SP is imo an extremely funny to play class. it has short fast casts. good run speed bc 75% of time body and soul can be up on you. you have always things to press and to do. insanity has a "good feeling". so, if you can handle surrender of madness (without you suck, as mentioned by prev posters) and my points above dont stress you, go for it.

if you wanna dont do anything wrong, go for mage. or maybe lock. as always, they will be top of the pops.

[Wenoxar]

Is Shadow Priest pretty much like Affliction Warlock WoD?

Ugly useless on AoE or switching targets and extremely good on cleave high health targets (council fights) and single target? Seems like... Even class fantasy is similiar... both specs look pretty "evil"

[clevin]

OP - keep in mind that StM can be used ONCE in fight. You die as it expires. So, yay as an execute but not something you can use multiple times on a fight.

A plus for spriest (aside from the above stuff) is that you CAN heal in the other specs. Whether you want to or are willing to... that's on you, but you CAN. That's a two edged sword of course. As a lock or mage you will never be asked to do anything but DPS.

That brings the downside of course... you only have one DPS spec. If you don't like how shadow plays and you don't want to heal, you're screwed.

[De Lupe]

Already had a SPriest, but now I might actually play her. Definitely going to have more fun with her now that she's more Old God-ish in her theme. Do you hear his call? Listen closely!

OP - keep in mind that StM can be used ONCE in fight. You die as it expires. So, yay as an execute but not something you can use multiple times on a fight.

I am so very tempted to macro some kind of insane babbling to my StM.

[Fleckens]

Already had a SPriest, but now I might actually play her. Definitely going to have more fun with her now that she's more Old God-ish in her theme. Do you hear his call? Listen closely!



I am so very tempted to macro some kind of insane babbling to my StM.

You can just type normal stuff, while in void form you speak random nonsense.

For example, I copy pasted part of your post and said it while in void form and got this "Yyg'far qam i YYg'far nuq nuq I fhssh erh'ongg fssh qam Sk'woth'gl agthu ni agth arwi nuq shfk qam nuq uull agtHu arwi Lal Zuq maq zz qam w'ssh Og zuq ongg yrr wgah Ssaggh uul'gwa Lwhuk Ak'agthshi Ag'xig ag iggksh Kyth SsagGH shfk zz zaix uull VaZ i"

[clevin]

I am so very tempted to macro some kind of insane babbling to my StM.

(looks for Cthulu-esque sounds)

[Sarkol]

People always go over the top with the cons. Priests relative lack of cleave aoe and burst aoe( For which they have Shadow Crash if it's really needed) are cons, but then again, tons of other classes do that job, The Spriests job in Legion seems to be very good single target, absolutely excellent 2-3 target spread, good multidotting again still, even though you can't really refresh tons of dots while in Void Form. Surrender to Madness pushes them to ridiculous levels. I actually don't see how Blizzard will let it stay in the game. Good players are going to milk in constantly. Doubt Blizzard will let Priest dominate the meters, even with it's drawback.

On topic though, Priests seem very strong in raids, good/decent in dungeons, especially high Mythic plus which really counts, where your damage can ramp up. Decent burst of mobility with body and soul, smooth to play. If it's what you enjoy, i don't think you can really go wrong with a Spriest. People will be quick to just say go Mage. Why not level both? I'm doing just that. Fire and Shadow. Fire will probably be toned down a tad more, but it's mechanically excellent and has a good toolset. Spriest may not be as rounded as that, but then again, no class really is. But Spriest has it's own set of strengths, and it's cool as fuck. Try both, focus on one a bit later.

[GT4]

Surrender to Madness pushes them to ridiculous levels. I actually don't see how Blizzard will let it stay in the game. Good players are going to milk in constantly.

It's high risk/high reward (on top of being unforgiving and as such comparatively hard to play) on a class that's otherwise average at best (single target and cleave DPS without S2M is average, burst DPS and AoE is shit). If Blizzard decides to nerf or remove StM without adjusting the class as a whole, SP will fall way below warlocks (which top guilds will already use at most one of as it currently stands) when it comes to raid viability because there won't be any reason to bring one.

Doubt Blizzard will let Priest dominate the meters, even with it's drawback.

As it stands now, outlaw rogues are going to dominate the meters once they have the legendary boots.

good/decent in dungeons, especially high Mythic plus which really counts, where your damage can ramp up.

Unless your scale goes from "good/decent" to "amazing", I don't see how you can justify that. SP is strong in raids for literally one reason (StM) which has a greatly diminished value in dungeons. In addition to that, not having proper AoE (shadow crash doesn't replace proper AoE) and having average single target and multi target DPS (after a significant ramp up time) doesn't exactly help either. For general play (as in: excluding possible exploit cases that might pop up), SP is certainly at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to dungeons.

I've yet to hear any other player on beta having a different experience in this regard either.

OP asked for a list of pros and cons, not for a salesman's speech on why he should play SP.

[Sarkol]

It's high risk/high reward (on top of being unforgiving and as such comparatively hard to play) on a class that's otherwise average at best (single target and cleave DPS without S2M is average, burst DPS and AoE is shit). If Blizzard decides to nerf or remove StM without adjusting the class as a whole, SP will fall way below warlocks (which top guilds will already use at most one of as it currently stands) when it comes to raid viability because there won't be any reason to bring one.



As it stands now, outlaw rogues are going to dominate the meters once they have the legendary boots.

Don't see what Rogues have to do with anything. I know STM is high risk, high reward, but it's like the old combustion. High RNG yes, but good player milked it for massive damage. You can already see good players are going to melt the meters using STM. I think that's fine, but Blizzard usually doesn't. The way they've designed that tier makes it the only real option too. It's not even a choice, which is the point of that talent.

Also, i'm pretty sure Priest without STM aren't just 'average at best', and i'm not even sure what that means considering there's no real way to know class ranks until raids come out. And no, Sims mean absolutely nothing. They seem to excel on a lot of fights in the first tier, and generally be in a good spot. Then again, i don't know either. Seen a lot of raid testing, Mythic plus etc. It looks like they're tuned fine. Maybe not. Most good Priests here seem to think they're fine right now.

[TnTizz]

OP, do you know what PVE stands for?

[Sarkol]

It's high risk/high reward (on top of being unforgiving and as such comparatively hard to play) on a class that's otherwise average at best (single target and cleave DPS without S2M is average, burst DPS and AoE is shit). If Blizzard decides to nerf or remove StM without adjusting the class as a whole, SP will fall way below warlocks (which top guilds will already use at most one of as it currently stands) when it comes to raid viability because there won't be any reason to bring one.



As it stands now, outlaw rogues are going to dominate the meters once they have the legendary boots.



Unless your scale goes from "good/decent" to "amazing", I don't see how you can justify that. SP is strong in raids for literally one reason (StM) which has a greatly diminished value in dungeons. In addition to that, not having proper AoE (shadow crash doesn't replace proper AoE) and having average single target and multi target DPS (after a significant ramp up time) doesn't exactly help either. For general play (as in: excluding possible exploit cases that might pop up), SP is certainly at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to dungeons.

I've yet to hear any other player on beta having a different experience in this regard either.

OP asked for a list of pros and cons, not for a salesman's speech on why he should play SP.

I've seen multiple people with experience of high level Mythic plus saying Shadow is decent there. Seen people doing it with good dps as well. Not amazing, but they certainly aren't 'bottom of the food chain', and quite frankly, not being the absolute top dog in Mythic plus doesn't mean you shouldn't play a spec, otherwise everyone should role about 5 specs and be done with it. As i said, Shadow is 'decent' in dungeons. Seems an accurate assessment.

[Deleted]

What spec is worse off than Shadow Priest in mythic+ dungeons?

[GT4]

Don't see what Rogues have to do with anything.

You were talking about priests "dominating the meters". A class can hardly "dominate the meters" when another class is doing so.

I know STM is high risk, high reward, but it's like the old combustion. High RNG yes, but good player milked it for massive damage.

You can't compare combustion and StM. Combustion had no risk involved because pressing the button would never lose you DPS. RNG being a factor doesn't make it more of a risk, it merely makes it have a bigger variance (such as is e.g. the case for outlaw now). Unlike combustion, StM actually comes with a huge risk of dying early and not being able to be rezzed to boot. Not only does that make it unusable for some fights, it also means that you're always having some risk of losing DPS (if only because of a short lag spike killing you in case you're playing flawlessly and the fight has no problematic mechanics). I wouldn't be surprised if your average player was, on average, better off not speccing into StM at all.

You can already see good players are going to melt the meters using STM. I think that's fine, but Blizzard usually doesn't. The way they've designed that tier makes it the only real option too. It's not even a choice, which is the point of that talent.

As mentioned previously, given their lack of any other outstanding qualities and the risk involved in using StM, SPs need to be doing well if they can use StM and if they manage to use it properly. When looking at warcraftlogs, outlaw and SP need to be doing well above average when looking at the top reports or they won't be viable for progress raiding. Why? Both classes have greatly varying DPS depending on the circumstances. For outlaw it's RNG and for SPs it's a combination of fight length and having lots of padding potential (pop bloodlust just for the SPs, keep adds up for StM, etc.).

Also, i'm pretty sure Priest without STM aren't just 'average at best', and i'm not even sure what that means considering there's no real way to know class ranks until raids come out. And no, Sims mean absolutely nothing. They seem to excel on a lot of fights in the first tier, and generally be in a good spot. Then again, i don't know either. Seen a lot of raid testing, Mythic plus etc. It looks like they're tuned fine. Maybe not. Most good Priests here seem to think they're fine right now.

When looking at data, you have to properly analyze it. Looking at raid tests for example, I couldn't find any logs where a priest was doing well and wasn't using StM or upscaled T18 bonuses (typically it was both) - the latter providing a huge DPS boost. I didn't see the same with e.g. fire mages (a lot were using upscaled T18 but there were also ones without upscaled T18 doing well) although there are certainly other classes with the same issue (e.g. the few rets I could find were using T18's triple wings which is absolutely huge with crusade and the artifact's duration increase). Combine that with sims which absolutely mean something if you know how to use and interpret them (and validate their results in-game) and you can see that SPs aren't doing great without StM.

From what I've seen, SPs without StM are really sub-par early on (gear and artifact roughly when entering the first raids). They scale up pretty well with gear and the remaining artifact traits (partially because quite a few specs get no single target benefits from the last third of their artifact), probably ending up above average when fully geared. Now, when looking at which classes to bring to your raid, what matters is their performance during progress raids. During those, you'll definitely not be fully geared and you'll rely on StM to make up for your weaknesses.

- - - Updated - - -

I've seen multiple people with experience of high level Mythic plus saying Shadow is decent there. Seen people doing it with good dps as well. Not amazing, but they certainly aren't 'bottom of the food chain', and quite frankly, not being the absolute top dog in Mythic plus doesn't mean you shouldn't play a spec, otherwise everyone should role about 5 specs and be done with it. As i said, Shadow is 'decent' in dungeons. Seems an accurate assessment.

Every spec is "decent" in Mythic+. You can certainly get to +10 with any combination of classes and specs. That doesn't mean that some aren't significantly worse off than others, will need more gear to get to +10 and will cap out sooner. I've yet to meet anybody doing +10 or higher who didn't say that SP was one of the worse specs for Mythic+.

Personally I'll absolutely do Mythic+ on my SP (not like it's an option given how lucrative they are) but at the same time I know I'd be able to contribute more (especially early on) on pretty much any other class/spec.

[Drdoelloos]

OP, do you know what PVE stands for?

Priest vs EVERYONE

[soulcrusher]

(looks for Cthulu-esque sounds)

That's exactly what I was thinking